Computer needs help! What's your favorite helpful website?

[Pixieflip]

Right now I'm on my daughter's laptop, but my 11 month old desktop is fritzed. Ugh. I really don't want to pay $139-$200 for the geek squad, it really isn't in the budget right now, which is why I'm posting this on the budget board.

DH feels it is not a hardware issue, but probably a virus. I've got the "black screen of death." And it won't respond to F8 to open in safe mode. I've googled my way to rebooting with the repair dvd. (I can't believe I even said that, let alone understood it!) But this is where I'm stuck. It says there are no repairs to be made, which there clearly are, and goes back to the black screen of death.


Does anyone have a favorite website or forum where you can research such things? I get all my answers in life here, why not computers, too?!

 

[surfergirl602]

shouldn't it be under warantee if its under a year old?

 

[bradisgoofy]

shouldn't it be under warantee if its under a year old?

This should be true for certain manufacturers. Did you make the recovery DVDs or did it come with them ? If so, do a complete recovery which will take your computer back to the day you brought it home and erase everything on the harddrive. If the computer does restart or won't let you do the recovery then you have a bad harddrive which is only $50 or so to replace and is pretty easy to change out yourself.

 

[dawson5]

My hard drive went bad last year. We knew it was going and moved most files off of it to the other drive before it fully died. When it went, it would not boot up at all. Is this what you mean by the "black screen of death?"

If you have files that you want to try and save. My son was able to use a live cd (I want to say unbuntu--he's not awake right now for me to ask, it's almost 6 here.) and that was how we got the last few off. This didn't install, just allowed me to move files, I only have one optical drive on this pc, so there was no burning of files to disc either.

Another thought if it is the hard drive, purchase another, install into the case and install your operating system on there and mount the other as a slave. You might be able to save your files that way also.

I just replaced my second hard drive on this machine (I knew I would have to replace both when I bought this machine, I didn't like the drives it came with), on Sunday. Took about an hour to install HDD, install OS and find my drivers and install all the other programs (burning software, anti-virus, etc.) I'm not fully back to where I was, but I can get the other little things here and there. I found my hard drive on newegg for about $55 with free shipping. (I bought a Western Digital Caviar Black, 640 GB)

If you aren't covered under warranty for the pc itself, open it up and see what kind of hard drive you have. Your hard drive might be covered by the manufacturer. Even if it's not, they might offer you a discount on a new one for owner loyalty. Even with the owner loyalty discount, my drive from newegg was cheaper for me.

As for fixing it. I would avoid Geek Squad. Look around town, you will probably find more places that will do the work for a lot less money and that is all they do. Another option, call the high school. My son's teachers (two of them) will repair computers in their spare time.

 

[msminniemouse]

I've had alot of luck with http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/topic/293140-cant-start-windows-blue-screen-of-death/. One time I had a virus and they walked me through step by step what to do to get rid of it.

 

[msmayor]

shouldn't it be under warantee if its under a year old?

Warranties are generally only going to cover hardware issues, not software issues.

Unless or until the OP can document a hardware problem the warranty will not apply.

 

[Judique]

Right now I'm on my daughter's laptop, but my 11 month old desktop is fritzed. Ugh. I really don't want to pay $139-$200 for the geek squad, it really isn't in the budget right now, which is why I'm posting this on the budget board.

DH feels it is not a hardware issue, but probably a virus. I've got the "black screen of death." And it won't respond to F8 to open in safe mode. I've googled my way to rebooting with the repair dvd. (I can't believe I even said that, let alone understood it!) But this is where I'm stuck. It says there are no repairs to be made, which there clearly are, and goes back to the black screen of death.


Does anyone have a favorite website or forum where you can research such things? I get all my answers in life here, why not computers, too?!

What brand is it? Dell has online help. Can you get to system restore in Control panel when you reboot?

 

[Lewisc]

The mfg website should have information. You want to use your recovery DVD to restore your computer to factory settings. You'll get some warnings about losing everything you put on the computer.

Do you have stuff on your hard drive you can't afford to lose? Spend the $100-$150 for Staples/BestBuy.

 

[Pixieflip]

Thank you for all the suggestions!! I knew my DIS friends would be so helpful!

It's a Gateway and the manufacturer's warranty is only on hardware. DH feels it's probably a virus that is just preventing the last steps in the boot up process from occurring. All photos are backed up and as far as info...well, we'll see what happens. Hopefully it's still there.

Off to show DH all your ideas. Will be back to let you know how it goes or what he says.

 

[andycat]

A couple of easy things to try...

See if you can get into the BIOS setup program. You'll have to watch very carefully to see what key(s) you need to press. It's sometimes hard to figure this out, as modern monitors don't always power up in time to display the message. If you can get in, see if the computer is (1) set to boot from the hard drive, and (2) see if the computer recognizes that there is a hard drive.

There can be similar problems trying to catch the Safe Mode F8 prompt. You might try practicing on the computer you're using now so you can make certain your hitting it at the right time. On my computer, after some of the initial text is displayed, the screen goes blank and there's a single underline cursor in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. That's when I have to hit F8 (it's only about a two-second window).

A couple of more advanced possibilities...

For either one of these options, you may need to get into the BIOS setup described above and make certain the computer is configured to try to boot from the CD before trying to boot from the hard drive.

It's possible to create a bootable CD that will be able to access your Windows hard drive, assuming there isn't anything physically wrong with the drive. There's a step-by-step guide to using Knoppix at http://www.shockfamily.net/cedric/knoppix/. I've used the Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD) described at http://www.ubcd4win.com/.

Either way, you should be able to at least copy any data files off to a USB drive. UBCD comes with an anti-virus program that you should be able to point at your hard drive to try to clean it, but please make certain you've copied your files off first.

 

[Pixieflip]

We can get to the boot up screen via the recovery disk but system repair says there's nothing to repair and system recovery brings us back a couple days but with the same black screen with the white cursor.

Just trying everything else before we wipe the whole thing clean. So, keep the ideas coming. thanks.

 

[Lewisc]

If it's not worth the $100-$150 a place like BB or Staples will charge it's not worth the time it will take you. A bad virus may require 2 or 3 different programs to fix your computer. Don't get everything and it will keep coming back.

Your computer won't boot. You'll need an AV program with an emergency boot CD. You'll have to boot off the CD and hope it will be able to fix whatever problem you have.

A long shot. See if you have an option on your recovery CD to reinstall Windows.

Do you have any passwords (banking, CD, credit cards) on your computer? Don't take a chance. Change them NOW.

 

[rock_doctor]

It is hard to diagnosis long distance and i may be wrong but it sounds like the boot record is bad or you have a bad driver that is loading and then stopping the boot process. That means reinstall the OS. You can download a cd called Hirens boot CD... It is hard to find and download as it... for the most part an old hacker tool but will do tons of stuff.... Boot to it and have it go into XP (that is on the cd) and just move the stuff off the drive that is important. If it is a lot then get yourself a portable drive... Reinstall the OS and you should be ok. Or (what i would do)... get yourself a new laptop hard drive and a laptop hard drive external enclosure. Put the new drive into the laptop and reinstall the os. Put the old drive into the enclosure. The laptop will see the external drive as a hard drive and you can just move the important stuff off the old drive onto the new one...after scanning it for viruses... If you need an anti-virus AVG and Avast are wonderful free anti-viruses plus Microsoft also makes a free one that is excellent called Microsoft Essentials... Not a big deal but is a "franklin fix".

 

[digitaldevice]

This is very easy to do. LOL I say this cause I do this 4-5 times a week. I run a computer service Biz. Pull your laptop HD out and back it up with another desktop PC and format the laptop drive. Now your all set to do the restore CD or I most of the time use a OEM CD. This should take you about 1-2 hours to do.

 

[Lewisc]

This is very easy to do. LOL I say this cause I do this 4-5 times a week. I run a computer service Biz. Pull your laptop HD out and back it up with another desktop PC and format the laptop drive. Now your all set to do the restore CD or I most of the time use a OEM CD. This should take you about 1-2 hours to do.

The laptop is working fine. The desktop computer is the computer having problems.

The other thing the OP can do his find out who makes the hard drive. Go to the mfg website and D/L the diagnostic program. You'll probably create a bootable CD.

 

[Lorikr65]

I use www.broadbandreports.com and they've gotten rid of viruses for me and are just there fore any kind of questions - all for free. Very helpful people

 

[Pixieflip]

Thanks for all the help. We were able to save all our files to my external hard drive, wiped the desktop clean...still have the black screen with the white cursor.

Not sure what to try next, some of your ideas came in after we went to dinner last night, so we'll see what DH thinks we can try. We're snowed in now, so not like we can take it anywhere anyway for a while!

Really appreciate the suggestions.

 

[starwood]

I always use http://www.whatthetech.com. They've helped me out numerous times.

 

[Lewisc]

The problem is either software or hardware. Software could be a virus, corrupt files, wrong driver loaded during an update etc. Hardware could be a damaged hard drive.

Easiest way for you to fix software is to use your recovery disk and start over.

Easiest way to check hardware to to go to your mfg website. See if they have diagnostic programs. Alternately go to the hard drive mfg website and D/L their programs.

 

[tomscarpt]

Did you try ebay they have recovery disc for windows .That claim to fix it all i looked cause we had a major problems.We felt the same way $150.00 was not worth geek squad to fix .The disc are $7 to 10 each and have all great reviews never tried it but thinking of picking one up.